Ancient World Review

The St. Cuthbert Gospel, The Digital Dark Age & The Spread Of Illiteracy

Video from 2012. Closed-captions helpful.

"The Gospel, which is a manuscript copy of the Gospel of St John, is the earliest intact European book and is intimately associated with Cuthbert, one of Britain's foremost saints. It was created in the late 7th century in the north-east of England and placed in St Cuthbert's coffin, apparently in 698. It was discovered when the coffin was opened in Durham Cathedral in 1104 on the occasion of the removal of Cuthbert's body to a new shrine. The Gospel has a beautifully-worked, original, red leather binding in excellent condition, and is the only surviving high-status manuscript from this crucial period in British history to retain its original appearance, both inside and out." Source: British Library.

Next video: CT scan of the gospel:

According to Caroline Petit (Medicine, Ancient and Modern), "[f]or me, the real star of the Lindisfarne Gospel exhibition [where the gospel was displayed in 2013] was another manuscript: the St Cuthbert Gospel .., a tiny, modest book with a simple leather binding containing Saint John’s gospel. From a historical and codicological point of view, it is a most remarkable artefact. Allegedly found in Cuthbert’s coffin in 1104 among other precious relics, the book is thought to have been made at Wearmouth-Jarrow [a monastery located in the medieval Kingdom of Northumbria] shortly before 700, and to ‘have been the very copy that SS. Cuthbert and Boisil had read together at Melrose when the latter was on his deathbed..."

St. Cuthbert was a hermit and missionary known for his asceticism and generosity to the poor. A politically important figure later in life, he was thought to be a wonder worker and became the center of a cult. "After Cuthbert's death, numerous miracles were attributed to his intercession and to intercessory prayer near his remains," according to Wikipedia, a classic example of the early church's superstitious belief in holy relics and the way Christians transformed their saints into demigods with miraculous powers.

This fantastic old book was taken from Cuthbert's coffin, turned into a relic and apparently ended up in the hands of collectors after Henry VIII shut down the Catholic monasteries in the mid-1500s. It was then given to a college operated by the Jesuits, who loaned it to the British Library and eventually sold it to them in 2012 for a tidy profit of around nine million pounds (almost 13 million dollars).  Business is business, after all. The book is in good hands now, at least until the Muslims take over Britain. If that happens, the Jihadis won't think twice about burning this incredible artifact.

Note: "With a page size of only 138 by 92 millimetres (5.4 in × 3.6 in), the St Cuthbert Gospel is one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The essentially undecorated text is the Gospel of John in Latin, written in a script that has been regarded as a model of elegant simplicity." (Wikipedia)

Comment: This fantastic book is over 1300 years old, but it's still perfectly clear and legible. Compare that to the average lifespan of digital documents, which can probably be measured in a few decades at most.

Preserving digital files is a labor-intensive process. According to the Digital Preservation Coalition, the longevity of these documents can be extended with periodic refreshing (moving a file from one physical storage medium to another), migration (changing them from one format to another) and emulation (creating software that can read a variety of formats), but only a small percentage of the digital material being produced today will ever get this kind of archival treatment.

Physical books, on the other hand, will last for centuries, if not millennia, if they're kept in relatively dry, shaded and -- as in the case of the St. Cuthbert Gospel -- airtight spaces. And they frequently don't need any specialized handling at all to survive for thousands of years. For instance, look at all the ancient papyri scrolls that have been discovered which are still readable even though they were just stuffed into amphorae and buried in the sand. When it comes to longevity, the old technologies are still the best and this includes things like photographs recorded on film rather than digital media:

"We know that photographic negatives, transparencies and prints last a long time. They are reliable forms of storing data. Recently the Royal Geographic Society reprinted Frank Hurley's pictures from the 1913 Antarctic Exhibition - from his original glass negatives, nearly 100 years old. An example of how robust the storage medium was - remember these negatives had been in sub-zero conditions and transported across an ocean in a tiny lifeboat!" (Digital Preservation Coalition)

The digital revolution that was supposed to make us all smarter has not only shortened the lifespan of written material but has actually caused a general decline in reading and writing. The number of people who read for pleasure has been going down for decades now. The deterioration in writing skills is obvious all over the western world, and cursive handwriting is no longer being taught in many schools. One of the bizarre consequences of this is that "toddler's’ excessive use of touchscreens is leaving the muscles in their hands so weak they cannot grip a pencil," according to the Sunday Express.

What does this have to do with the Cuthbert Gospel? Nothing directly, I guess, but look at what the Gospel represents. What we have here is an approximately 1,300-year-old book which has survived into an age when print is dying in favor of digital media with an average lifespan of less than 20 years. The Cuthbert Gospel was written by hand -- a skill that most people don't learn or use anymore -- in a language that most people can't understand -- that came down to us from a period that most people don't know anything about (they don't know the most basic facts about their own history, never mind the Middle Ages).

I wouldn't call this progress. The Cuthbert Gospel, among other things, is a reminder of how much the West has deteriorated.

Note: The entire Cuthbert Gospel can be viewed online in the British Museum's digitized manuscripts collection. Scanning the book makes it available to people who can't visit the museum, but I have to wonder if the digitized version will last anywhere near as long as the original.

Ashes Of Notre Dame Cathedral To Reveal Secrets Of Medieval Architecture

Video posted on Dec. 14, 2019.

"The remains of last year ’s burning of Paris ’s Notre-Dame cathedral will be studied by scientists." Source: Ancient Origins.

"On April 15 of last year the world froze as an electrical [1] fire destroyed the cathedral’s roof and spire and caused part of its vaulted ceiling to collapse. The incident was declared a national tragedy and now scientists from the French national research organization CNRS have embarked on a multimillion-euro study of the innards of the 850 year-old holy building to learn more about how the medieval masons constructed it."

[1] As far as I know, there has never been any confirmation that the fire was caused by a short-circuit or some other kind of electrical problem. When this was reported back in April, 2019, the Paris prosecutor said that the investigation would be "long and complex" and that's the last I heard about it.

Video from June, 2019.

Related: Inside Notre Dame: a blow-by-blow account of the restoration process (Sept. 2019).

I hope this is wrong but there's a chance, according to one source, that the cathedral can't be saved at all:

"The rector of Notre Dame Cathedral says the Paris landmark is still so fragile that there’s a '50% chance' the structure might not be saved, because scaffolding installed before this year’s fire is threatening the vaults of the Gothic monument." Source: AP (Dec. 25, 2019).

Possibly related: 3000 Christian Sites in Europe Vandalized in 2019.

Exorcism: Facts & Fiction About Demonic Possession

The belief in demons is alive and well in the modern world.

"The belief that demons exist and can possess people is of course the stuff of fiction and horror films — but it is also one of the most widely-held religious beliefs in the world. Most religions claim that humans can be possessed by demonic spirits (the Bible, for example, recounts six instances of Jesus casting out demons), and offer exorcisms to remedy this threat." Source: Live Science (2013).

"The idea that invading spirits are inherently evil is largely a Judeo-Christian concept; many religions and belief systems accept possession by both beneficent and malevolent entities for short periods of time as uncommon — and not especially alarming — aspects of spiritual life."

More Christian demonology. Don't ask where the serpent in the Garden of Eden came from, however. That will only lead you into a quagmire of theological absurdities.

The transformation of the old pagan gods and other spiritual entities into the satanic demons we know today provides yet more evidence of the Christian culture war against classical polytheism that took place after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire:

"...though the word demon is now practically restricted to this sinister sense [satanic, inherently evil], it was otherwise with the earlier usage of the Greek writers. The word, which is apparently derived from daio 'to divide' or 'apportion', originally meant a divine being; it was occasionally applied to the higher gods and goddesses, but was more generally used to denote spiritual beings of a lower order coming between gods and men. For the most part these were beneficent beings, and their office was somewhat analogous to that of the angels in Christian theology." Source: New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia.

It's also possible, I suppose, that demons are actually extraterrestrials. If that's true they're not spiritual entities at all, which would make exorcism useless.

Exorcism Goes Mainstream

EWTN Global Catholic Television (2016).

"Exorcism is going multi-denominational. Where once those competing for the souls of followers would burn each other as heretics and engage in bloody wars, the world’s mainstream Christian denominations are now rallying together to battle a resurrected threat." Source: Perth Now (May 2019).

"And that’s no less than Satan himself.

"The Roman Catholic Church has for the first time opened up its annual exorcism class in Rome to representatives of all major Christian faiths. The Pontifical University of Regina Apostolorum is a Vatican-affiliated university in Rome that has been conducting the increasingly popular annual exorcism conventions for Catholic priests for the past 14 years."

Video from 2010.

Note: Exorcism or similar beliefs and practices go way back:

"The use of protective means against the real, or supposed, molestations of evil spirits naturally follows from the belief in their existence, and is, and has been always, a feature of ethnic religions, savage and civilized. In this connection only two of the religions of antiquity, the Egyptian and Babylonian, call for notice; but it is no easy task, even in the case of these two, to isolate what bears strictly on our subject, from the mass of mere magic in which it is embedded. The Egyptians ascribed certain diseases and various other evils to demons, and believed in the efficacy of magical charms and incantations for banishing or dispelling them. The dead more particularly needed to be well fortified with magic in order to be able to accomplish in safely their perilous journey to the underworld (see Budge, Egyptian Magic, London, 1899). But of exorcism, in the strict sense, there is hardly any trace in the Egyptian records." Source: New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia.

Exorcism is usually associated with the Catholic Church and backwoods fundamentalist denominations, but  rituals for casting out demons and other types of spirits have also been used by Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews and Taoists over the millennia. (Wikipedia) And the practice is still relatively common around the world. For instance, the next video shows a Buddhist Ghost Exorcising Festival which took place in Bejing in 2015.

Despite the fact that magic and religion are supposed to be different things [1], exorcism is undoubtedly a magical ritual since it relies on sacred ceremonies and the recitation of adjurations, etc., to ward off or drive a supernatural entity out of a place or a human body. How is this different in practice from, say, a pagan magic ritual designed to calm a storm or appease the gods and guarantee a safe passage?

"For the storm lasted for three days; and at last the Magians, by using victims [cut up in pieces and offered to the manes] and wizards' spells on the wind, and by sacrificing also to Thetis and the Nereids, did make it to cease on the fourth day." (Herodotus)

[1] "Magic is a category into which have been placed various beliefs and practices considered separate from both religion and science." (Wikipedia)

The fact that exorcism is still practiced by the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations provides more evidence, I think, that Christianity is actually a polytheistic religion.

Exorcism, by definition, is "the religious or spiritual practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or an area..." (Wikipedia) Polytheism is, by definition, "the worship of or belief in multiple deities," so the question of whether a belief in demons makes you a polytheist boils down to whether you think demons or "spiritual entities" qualify as deities.

The word "deity" has various associations. It can mean a god or goddess, a "supernatural being considered divine or sacred," but it has also been defined as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans ... who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life..." (Wikipedia)

Demons may not be as powerful as God, but they are still supernatural entities with powers greater than those of ordinary humans. They are part of a hierarchy of spiritual beings. It might be more accurate to call them demigods, a term that was originally "used to render the Greek and Roman concepts of semideus and daemon." (Wikipedia) "Demon" comes from "daemon" which was the original meaning of "demigod," and demigods are minor deities.

In some cases, demons are or were actual pagan gods. The demon in the Exorcist, for instance, was Pazuzu, a "character from Assyrian and Babylonian mythology ... considered the king of the demons of the wind, and the son of the god Hanbi..." (Wikipedia) If Jesus, the son of Yahweh, is a deity, then so is the demon Pazuzu, the son of Hanbi.

Modern exorcists believe that there are other supernatural entities active in the world besides God. Some of these entities are demons who were once fallen angels. Others are pagan gods transformed into demons by the church.  This belief in a hierarchy of spiritual beings is fundamentally pagan and polytheistic.

Happy Yule, Saturnalia & (Maybe) Mithra's Birthday

Christmas is a classic example of how the early church Christianized the pagan West by taking over its traditions.

"The Christian ecclesiastical calendar contains many remnants of pre-Christian festivals. Christmas includes elements of the Roman feast of the Saturnalia and the birthday of Mithra. The Chronography of 354 AD contains early evidence of the celebration on December 25 of a Christian liturgical feast of the birth of Jesus. This was in Rome, while in Eastern Christianity the birth of Jesus was already celebrated in connection with the Epiphany on January 6." Source: Wikipedia.

Christmas traditions have deep roots in the ancient pagan world. Take the Christmas tree, for instance. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "The use of evergreen trees, wreaths, and garlands to symbolize eternal life was a custom of the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Hebrews. Tree worship was common among the pagan Europeans and survived their conversion to Christianity in the Scandinavian customs of decorating the house and barn with evergreens at the New Year to scare away the Devil and of setting up a tree for the birds during Christmastime. It survived further in the custom, also observed in Germany, of placing a Yule (1) tree at an entrance or inside the house during the midwinter holidays."

(1) "Yule or Yuletide ('Yule time' or 'Yule season') is a festival historically observed by the Germanic peoples. Scholars have connected the original celebrations of Yule to the Wild Hunt, the god Odin, and the pagan Anglo-Saxon Mōdraniht [Old English 'Night of the Mothers']. ." (Wikipedia)

"Later departing from its pagan roots, Yule underwent Christianised reformulation, resulting in the term Christmastide. Many present-day Christmas customs and traditions such as the Yule log, Yule goat [see next video], Yule boar, Yule singing, and others stem from pagan Yule traditions."

 Also see The Symbols of Yule.

In Rome, the period of the winter solstice brought the seven days of the Saturnalia. "Saturn’s great festival, the Saturnalia, became the most popular of Roman festivals, and its influence is still felt in the celebration of Christmas and the Western world’s New Year." (Encyclopedia Britannica).

"The Saturnalia was the most popular holiday of the Roman year,"  according to the University of Chicago. Catullus describes it as 'the best of days' ... and Seneca complains that the 'whole mob has let itself go in pleasures" ... Pliny the Younger writes that he retired to his room while the rest of the household celebrated ... It was an occasion for celebration, visits to friends, and the presentation of gifts, particularly wax candles ... perhaps to signify the returning light after the solstice, and sigillaria."

Everything in Rome came to a stop during the Saturnalia, a festival of licentiousness and role reversals, among other things. According to History Extra, "We say that during Christmas today the whole world shuts down – the same thing happened during the Saturnalia. There were sometimes plots to overthrow the government, because people were distracted – the famous conspirator Cataline had planned to murder the Senate and set the city on fire during the holiday, but his plan was uncovered and stopped by Cicero in 63 BC."

Some Christians see the Saturnalia (and, by extension, Christmas itself) as satanic, which isn't too surprising since Christianity demonized all of the old pagan gods while simultaneously hijacking many of their traditions for their own purposes. In one case, that of Mithra (Mithras) -- the early church's main competitor -- the Christians may have appropriated a pagan god so completely that some have argued that Christ is Mithra in another form.

The identification of Mithra's birthday with Christmas is sketchy. While many sources claim that the god was born on Dec. 25, other sources say that this isn't true and the story seems to be a much later invention. According to Wikipedia, for instance, "It is often stated that Mithras was thought to have been born on December 25. But Beck states that this is not the case. In fact he calls this assertion 'that hoariest of 'facts'. He continues: 'In truth, the only evidence for it is the celebration of the birthday of Invictus on that date in the Calendar of Philocalus. Invictus is of course Sol Invictus, Aurelian's sun god. It does not follow that a different, earlier, and unofficial sun god, Sol Invictus Mithras, was necessarily or even probably, born on that day too.'" 

Mithra was said to have been born from a rock (in one version of the story) According to The Mysteries of Mithra, by Franz Cumont (p 131), "the tradition ran that the 'Generative Rock,' of which a standing image was worshiped in the temples, had given birth to Mithra on the banks of a river, under the shade of a sacred tree, and that shepherds alone, ensconced in a neighboring mountain, had witnessed the miracle of his entrance into the world." Like the story of Jesus's birth, the presence of shepherds in the fields suggests that Mithra was born in the spring or summer, not in the dead of winter. Whatever the case, however, the Jesus/Mithra connection is persistent in popular culture:

Related: Sol Invictus and Christmas

One interesting fact about Mithraism is that it appeared (in the Roman empire) around the same time that Christianity appeared and seems to have dropped out of sight around the same time that Nicene Christianity became the official state religion of Rome:

"The Roman deity Mithras appears in the historical record in the late 1st century A.D., and disappears from it in the late 4th century A.D.," according to The Tertullian Project. It's tempting to see this as circumstantial evidence that Christianity evolved out of Mithraism, but the truth is that all forms of pagan religion began to fade out after the church consolidated its power in the 4th century. Besides, very little is actually known about the teachings of Mithraism, an "organization of cells," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised), whose beliefs have to be reconstructed mostly from inscriptions.

None of this really matters, though. Mithras probably wasn't born on Dec. 25, but then neither was Jesus so what difference does it make? The connections between Christmas, ancient Yuletide celebrations and the Roman Saturnalia are clear, so if you're a pagan you might as well go ahead and celebrate Mithra's birthday today as well. Of course, this assumes that you see Christmas as a religious holiday in the first place. A lot of people don't:

"Most Americans celebrate Christmas, but its importance to people as a religious event continues to wane, according to a new survey by Pew Research." (News & Observer, 2017).

"The poll found that while 90 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas, only 55 percent regard it as a religious holiday. Further, the survey found, a decreasing majority of Americans believe in the main elements of the Christmas story as told in the Bible: that Jesus was born of a virgin mother; that three magi came to visit, bearing gifts; that an angel announced the baby’s birth; and that the infant was cradled in a manger."

Christmas has become secularized and increasingly commercial, to say the least. The holiday has degenerated into a month-long orgy of rabid consumerism and mass insanity, a typical example of the decline of the modern world. (Video from 2018)

Personally I have mixed feelings about Christmas. I'm not a Christian, for one thing, and I can't stand what the holiday has become, but traditions are important, especially now that all of our western traditions are under relentless attack by the Cultural Marxists. 

So Merry Christmas and if saying that offends somebody I couldn't care less.

The Education Of Julian The Apostate

Flavius Claudius Iulianus Augustus (331 - 363 AD) was a great man and one of the last true Romans. He is more commonly known today as Julian the Apostate, the name he was given by the Christian church for his determined attempt to restore paganism in the dying Roman empire.

Born in Constantinople in 331, Julian was "placed in the care of an Arian bishop" as a child and "from 342 was confined for six years on an imperial estate in Cappadocia," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised). "He impressed his Christian tutors there as a gifted and pious pupil, but his reading of the Greek classics was inclining him in private to other gods."

Christians who read and think too much tend to lose their faith, even if they're "heretics" like the Arians. "In 351, as a student of philosophy, [Julian] encountered pagan Neoplatonists and was initiated as a theurgist by Maximus of Ephesus," a Neoplatonist philosopher and magician who should be commemorated by pagans everywhere for the role he played in converting Julian to the traditional beliefs of the ancients.

Julian played a double game for years while waiting to see if he would be executed or made emperor. "For the next ten years Julian's pagan 'conversion' remained a prudently kept secret," according to the OCD. "He continued his studies in Asia and later at Athens until summoned to Milan by [Constantius II] to be married to the emperor's sister Helena and proclaimed Caesar with charge over Gaul and Britain."

Julian fought successful campaigns against the Alamanni and Franks that made him very popular with the army, which mutinied and declared him emperor after Constantius "ordered the transfer of choice detachments to the east..." (OCD). Luckily, civil war was avoided when Constantius died later that same year (361) and Julian took over Rome.

He publicly declared his paganism, purged the imperial court, issued a declaration of general religious tolerance that "foreshadowed a vigorous program of pagan activism in the interest of Hellenism," restored "the temples and finances of the ancestral cults," and established "a hierarchy of provincial and civic priesthoods." During the process, "Christian churches and clergy lost the financial subsidies and privileges gained under Constantine and his successors."

Julian discriminated in favor of pagans, but, unlike the Christians themselves, he didn't believe in using violence to persecute the people who didn't share his beliefs. Instead, he tried to marginalize Christianity, partly through argument, such as in his essay Against the Galileans, which is still well worth reading.

Julian's "learning and literary talent" as well as his control of the Roman legal apparatus could have changed the future course of the world in dramatic ways, but he was killed in a "minor skirmish" in his war against Persia after only three years in power. Wounded on June 26, 363, he died three days later on June 29, a  day which should also be commemorated by pagans.

By the time of Julian, Rome was already in serious trouble and the western empire would collapse around a hundred years later. Ultimately, Julian was fighting a rearguard action against Christianity, but his reforms might have made a difference if he had lived longer. After all, Christianity owed much of its influence to official support and a lot of important people converted in order to gain the favor of the court. Once that support had been removed, who knows what might have happened?

The real Rome was a pagan, not a Christian, empire. In Julian's day, the empire was being destabilized and distorted beyond recognition by a foreign religion and Julian might have been able to turn that around. 

"One of the persistent themes of Julian's antagonism towards the Christian church was his belief that they were troublemakers, causing political discord in any community where they formed the majority: 'they turn everything upside down.'" -- from the introduction to "Julian's Against the Galileans," edited and translated by R. Joseph Hoffmann, Prometheus Books, 2004. This feeling that an alien ideology is turning everything upside down is all too familiar today.

Here's to Flavius Claudius Iulianus Augustus. Rest in peace.

Church Vandalism Continues In France

Video from April, 2019.

The attacks on French churches are still going on, as reported by Breitbart a few days ago:

"Two men are accused of breaking into a church in the French commune of Tarbes and vandalising the place of worship and soiling books with faeces.

"The church attack occurred on Wednesday afternoon (11/20/19) and saw the pair, who are still at large, take out prayer books which they proceeded to tear up, set on fire, and soil with human waste...

"The pair also emptied an entire fire extinguisher, threw a statue at the church’s benches, and toppled a crucifix which they also tossed to the ground."

Note: "The attack comes just weeks after thieves used a car as a battering ram to break down the historic doors of the UNESCO-recognised Oloron-Sainte-Marie cathedral in the French Pyrenees where they stole multiple gold religious objects."

These attacks have been happening all over France for a couple of years now. The extent of Muslim involvement is unclear and the motivation behind the attacks seems to be varied. According to the bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, the latest incident doesn't appear to have been an act of desecration "in a purely religious meaning," but it's hard to tell the difference between desecration and simple vandalism. From what I've read, a lot of these attacks are apparently being carried out by French leftists. The Sainte-Marie d'Oloron attack, on the other hand, seems to have been a straightforward robbery.

The bishop wonders "whether or not, in the wake of the attack, churches in France should be equipped with CCTV cameras to prevent further crimes from happening." I'm amazed that this hasn't been done already.

Latest news on the Notre Dame fire can be found here. The fire happened on April 15, 2019. The very next day -- before any investigation could possibly have been completed -- the Paris prosecutor announced that there was no evidence of arson. I'm not sure how long the investigation lasted or how thorough it was, but the story mostly vanished from the news around June of this year. As far as I know there was never any definitive conclusion about what started the fire.

Related: Catholic News Agency stories about church vandalism around the world.

Building The Great Cathedrals

"The constructive characteristics of the Gothic style are unique in the history of Architecture. Gothic cathedrals pushed structure to the limit -- soaring cross-vaulting, pointed arches (1), hollow walls and piers covered with tracery -- and used the arch as an external brace, the flying buttress, to form one of the most beautiful stylistic elements of the Gothic style." Source: Mathematical Models of Gothic Structures (PDF).

(1) The pointed arch was likely borrowed from the Islamic architecture of Spain.

"The style represented giant steps away from the previous, relatively basic building systems that had prevailed. The Gothic grew out of the Romanesque architectural style, when both prosperity and relative peace allowed for several centuries of cultural development and great building schemes. From roughly 1000 to 1400, several significant cathedrals and churches were built, particularly in Britain and France, offering architects and masons a chance to work out ever more complex and daring designs." -- "Gothic Architecture: An Introduction," the Khan Academy.

The Battle On The Ice 1242 AD

Subject starts at app 0:40.

"The Battle on the Ice ... was fought between the Republic of Novgorod led by prince Alexander Nevsky and the forces of Livonian Order and Bishopric of Dorpat led by bishop Hermann of Dorpat on April 5, 1242, at Lake Peipus [see next video]. The battle is notable for having been fought largely on the frozen lake, and this gave the battle its name." Source: Wikipedia.

"The battle was a significant defeat sustained by the crusaders during the Northern Crusades, which were directed against pagans and Eastern Orthodox Christians rather than Muslims in the Holy Land. The Crusaders' defeat in the battle marked the end of their campaigns against the Orthodox Novgorod Republic and other Slavic territories for the next century."

It's easy to forget that the Crusades weren't just fought against Muslims in the so-called Holy Land, but against pagans and other Christians in Europe. Technically, a crusade was any church-sanctioned campaign and military/religious orders, i.e., organized gangs, like the Teutonic Knights were used to forcibly convert or slaughter unbelievers and suppress rivals to Rome's hegemony. And these "holy warriors" went rogue sometimes, operating like bandits or mercenaries in the pursuit of their own interests when they weren't massacring Jews and Saracens or attacking Christian kingdoms.

This is how "orthodox" Christianity took over the West. The Eastern Orthodox Church managed to stand up to the onslaught, however. It is now the second largest Christian church in the world, due in large part to its military victories over Catholic forces:

"In the Battle of the Ice, the Teutonic Knights [1], a Catholic group, attempted to invade Russia and convert the Eastern Orthodox population of the Republic of Novgorod. This military campaign was part of the so-called Northern Crusades. Teutonic Knights involved in the Battle of the Ice were mostly Estonian, German, and Danish." Source: National Geographic.

"Russians, led by legendary figure Alexander Nevsky, repelled the invaders. Today, Lake Peipus still forms the central border between Russia and Estonia. Russia remains overwhelmingly Eastern Orthodox and Estonia remains Catholic and Protestant."

[1] "Throughout the 13th and 14th century CE the Catholic Teutonic knights crusaded in Prussia and the Baltic area mainly against pagan Lithuanians and Orthodox Russians, but as the order was bent on expansion for its own sake, many other nationalities were fought besides those." (Ancient History Encyclopedia)

From the 1938 film Alexander Nevsky directed by Eisenstein. Music by Prokofiev. Full movie can be found here.

Despite the fact that he agreed to pay tribute to the Golden Horde, Alexander Nevsky is a legendary figure in Russia, a major national hero. Churches and cathedrals have been named after him. "On 24 September 2008, St. Alexander Nevsky was declared the main hero of Russia's history by popular vote ... In December 2008, he was voted the greatest Russian in the Name of Russia television poll." (Wikipedia)

"Hail and take heed, this is the tale one of the most famous Russian Heroes in history, second only to perhaps Vladimir of Kiev, the Baptizer of All Rus’. Few leaders have captured the hearts and minds of the Russians like Alexander Nevsky, who was voted Russia’s greatest leader of all time in 2008." Source: Russia Insider (2018).

Notre Dame Row: Macron's General Tells Architect To "Shut His Mouth"

Report from Oct. 2018.

"Tensions are high in the reconstruction project for France’s Notre Dame cathedral after an Army general appointed by President Emmanuel Macron has told an architect fighting for the original spire design to 'shut his mouth.'" Source: RT.

"It’s not a fight you expect to see very often, but the reconstruction of the fire-gutted Notre Dame cathedral has led to a showdown between the chief architect and General Jean-Louis Georgelin, appointed by French President Emmanuel Macron to pilot the restoration project."

Report from June 2019.

Comment: This is part of an ongoing fight over how the cathedral should be rebuilt. The jackass Macron and the general he put in charge of the reconstruction project want to give the structure "a more contemporary look," i.e. they want to turn it into some of kind of postmodern monstrosity. Meanwhile, Philippe Villeneuve, the chief architect, wants to rebuild the cathedral as it was before the fire, or as close to the way it was as possible. In other words, he wants to restore the cathedral, not destroy it.

RT doesn't get into the specifics about what they were arguing about, but it appears that the general thinks that the architect should just shut up and do what he's told:

"Asked about Villeneuve's point of view, the general said: 'As for the chief architect, I have already explained that he should shut his mouth.' He added that all involved with the project need to 'move ahead in wisdom so that we can serenely make the best choice for Notre Dame, for Paris, for the world.'"

What a pompous ass. Note that the general seems to think that the decision about how to restore the cathedral is still a matter of debate even though that question was supposedly decided months ago:

"What is strange about the whole debate is that it is happening at all. When a 'contemporary' redesign was first mentioned, there was a major public outcry. The French Senate even voted that the cathedral must be restored to its original glory."

In other words, the senate vote meant nothing at all. Big surprise.

The fight over the reconstruction of the cathedral is one skirmish in the larger war between the forces of tradition and cultural disintegration which is occurring all over the West. If Macron and his pet general get their way, they're liable to turn Notre Dame Cathedral into a public greenhouse or something even worse. If that happens it would have been better if the cathedral had just burned to the ground.

As for the fire itself, we still don't know what caused it. The French government announced almost immediately that no foul play was involved and stories surfaced a few days later that the blaze was probably electrical in origin. Or maybe it was caused by a cigarette butt. Nobody seemed to know at the time and we haven't heard anything since. The fire was international news for a week, maybe, then it just vanished from the media as if it had never happened. 

Ten-to-one it was arson, but I'm not holding my breath for the Macron regime to admit it.

Note: General Georgelin received a public reprimand for his comments. That's probably just as meaningless as the French senate's vote, but it's something, I guess.